Create a Clue, See the Sign, Make a Move
by Tatrin
Summary: So young and already so jaded... Seigen, Ryogo, and Yuto each on their own witnessed Rokuro's ever-burning fire dimming its light.


_"...Sensei... how many people I've killed?"_

_Seigen could only stare at the strange, unfamilar sight of his student number one's fire dimming._

* * *

Kids were screaming. They often scream about, unapologetically shouting their sentences. Some were more quiet, divided between being shy to join in or too busy snickering to themselves. All in all, they were just having fun, but Ryogo could see the sight was painful for his little brother, whose shoulders looked heavy and eyes even heavier.

Rokuro wasn't his sibling by blood but Ryogo spent enough time playing and training and fighting together that Rokuro was like his cute little brother. Although the "fighting together" part was mostly fighting in the same area because 'strong' was an adjective that should be attached to Rokuro, who showed incredible talent as an onmyouji even in his early age. Now, well, it's been so many weeks, and Ryogo was struggling to have faith that he'd be able to encourage Rokuro to really live again.

He doesn't train anymore. Prior to... that day, Ryogo could always count on Rokuro to make noise and explosions in the training room every night after dinner. He used to constantly try to squeeze in training before going to bed. Seigen-sensei said he kept the habit alive even after Ryogo moved out of Hiinatsuki Dormitory, but surprisingly not worse because Rokuro stopped being a fighting nut after midnights to not further disturb his friends' slumber. That habit was nowhere now. Rokuro would simply quietly close his bedroom door. The times when Ryogo went inside his room to wake him up in the morning to get him to train, he found Rokuro sleeping in uncomfortable positions. Sitting on the bed corner against the wall, sitting on the floor with the pillow on his back and not his head, positions which one would be easily awaken. One time, Ryogo found him sleeping while being curled over the pillow as if shielding a smaller human being, suffering a nightmare evidenced by the sobs. Not training wasn't the only thing new.

He doesn't make piles and piles of charms anymore. Rokuro had terrible handwriting but he took up using the brush quickly enough that he always kept the box of charm papers beside his bed filled to the brim, ready for him to use. About two weeks after Rokuro moved to Narukami, the box was conspicuously absent, and Ryogo never saw Rokuro picking up a brush again.

Rokuro doesn't spend as much of his time inside Magano endlessly exorcising that Seigen-sensei had to hunt him down to make him sit for meals. Rokuro had the terrible penchant to seamlessly move between dimensions. Ryogo would have suspected he would have spent three quarters of time in Magano if Rokuro doesn't also obviously loves spending time playing outside and with his friends.

Doesn't bother to study either. Granted Rokuro never put in much work to study the lessons gave his elementary teachers but he never failed to complete assignments and was enthusiastic in studying charms, if not the rest important stuff exorcists should know. Now he had completely abandoned any interest of listening to Jii-sama's lessons, and did the very bare minimum needed to graduate.

And nobody else saw just how broken Rokuro's spirit was because the kid's immature front was just the right kind of obnoxiousness to drive people away without Rokuro actually telling them to stay away from him.

He's so young and he's already so jaded.

But Ryogo believed he's still there. Somewhere inside his mind Rokuro was still fighting. Ryogo could see it whenever he thoughtlessly went to help people whose lives were in danger. With Kegare constantly messing up the other dimension, the human dimension was prone to suffer public property damages and Ryogo often spotted Rokuro running head first to get everyone out of the danger zones. He never moved to enter Magano to deal with the cause, he refused to look at the other exorcists, he kept running away from both sides which he claimed to hold hatred for, and Ryogo wouldn't force him to. It's a sad situation to see Rokuro putting a lid on his immense potential, but Seigen-sensei did often say that he was disappointed the adults weren't doing a good enough job that children were forced to take up fighting.

* * *

_Seigen placed a hand on Rokuro's shoulder, becoming highly aware of how tiny this brat is. "I'm moving you to Seiko Dorm in Narukami. Ryogo's there."_

_At the very least, the brat was strong enough to be responsive. Rokuro hummed._

_"I don't have to tell you to keep quiet about what you know now, do I?"_

_A nod. Just a small one._

* * *

When he was dropped onto Seiko Dorm he saw Ryogo first who went to hug him.

That was the first time he moved his body with as much autonomy he could muster. He had to push Ryogo away. The hug reminded him of Ruri's, whom embraced him in joy, chattering about how glad she was that she was going to be strong enough to fight alongside him before jabbing him in the shoulder, choking and confused and yelling at her own arm to stop.

Ryogo looked sad, before putting up a cheerful face and introduced him to his friends and comrades, Atsushi and Shinnosuke, who wished his well-being and hoped he'll be a great team member.

And Rokuro remembered all his friends, all who died because they wanted to be his comrades, so he followed Ryogo's example and smiled. A-chan, Shin-chan, he greeted them, I'm Rokuro and I'm going to unpack in my room now, he had said, leaving them immediately. He closed the door feeling like he was hiding, and remembered another time when he slammed the door closed to fend off Kegare Shizuku to protect Tatsuya, only to have Tatsuya turning into Kegare and biting off the fingers of his right hand. With cold sweat, he opened the door again, then felt silly, and closed it again quietly.

Of course at noon they asked him to join them in fighting Kegare, but Rokuro had the easy excuse of being tired from moving. The next few days he still had the convenient excuse that he wasn't feeling well due to homesickness. The next week he escaped their badgerings to train and battle by staying outside during the rain and swimming in the river to make himself sick. The next month, well, he just plain ran away.

He absolutely hated it whenever his hand would instinctively pulled out the charm to go to Magano. After every breakfast, every lunch, every after school hours his hand would pull out a charm he kept forgetting that he picked up as always. And every second before he uttered the first syllable he'd see the rusted, broken, poisoned version of his old home, and he'd rip the charm apart. He finally got sick enough of his reflex reaction he decided that if he can't beat his impulses, he'll make sure it won't ever land him onto the place where his friends died.

He picked up the box where he stored most of his charms, throwing in the ones he kept inside the pockets of all the clothes he owned, including his slightly dusty onmyouji uniform. Ryogo, A-chan and Shin-chan, let alone Jissama, would definitely try to "talk sense" into him, so Rokuro ran as far as his feet could carry and when he spotted the empty, shaded part under the bridge near the river, he decided it was the best place to burn everything. The papers easily burned, but the uniform took a longer time to become ash, and in that span of time his cries were heard but his shoulders didn't tense knowing it was only Mayura. After that day, in the midst of everybody's varying disappointment of him not being an onmyouji, only Mayura who didn't try to tell him to get back to Magano.

It's a change. It's breaking his dream of becoming the best onmyouji to utter pieces. But after he killed his own friends with his bare hands? Knowing that Kegare weren't just Kegare but people like his friends? When his own right hand was now a Kegare manifestation?

He had no right to be an onmyouji.

* * *

_Tenma, Tatara, Kankuro, Shimon, Subaru, Cordelia, Sakura, Kengo, Arata, Miku, Narumi, and Seigen vowed__, as they looked at tiny coffin after tiny coffin being put down, that as 12 Guardians they would become even stronger so there will be no more need for little children getting fast-tracked to fight._

* * *

Katsunori, Junpei, and Yuki were worthless as predicted. They have about average mana paired with little strong will to fight off the influence. Surprisingly Keisuke was weak too. Takumi, Keito, Eiko, and Tsukasa lasted about a minute screaming before they turned. The rest whom had above average mana were still whrithing on the floor, but delightfully Yuna somehow had the strength to stand on her feet, still human, and ran away screaming for Roku.

Gosh, he was supposed to observe their timings but the thought of Roku seeing Yuna changing was too fun to pass up. Yuto looked at the Kegare that was once Yuki and controlled its movements to stop it from pointlessly wrecking the room. Pity he could only control one Kegare at a time for now but it would do. Downstairs, he spotted Chieko just standing at the front hall. He tried to test Yuki's strength and was pleased that despite being the weakest Kegare he had created, it managed to mangle Chieko's body in one blow. When he saw Roku's back, he had Yuki retreat to let Yuna, who had been taking slow steps in immense pain, to reach Roku.

Begging, tears, and whoops, his name was slipped out, but Yuno finally reached her limit and green kuji-kiri formed on her torso. Yuto continued to observe. The change _really_ shocked Roku; he was too frozen in terror to save Hikari from getting her head eaten. Yuto had never seen Roku, who was straight on the way to be the strongest onmyouji, crying with so much tears. Laughter, joy, determination, but tonight he was sporting such a hopeless look. It reminded him of the expression his stupid little sister had during their parents' funeral. He had wiped it off with an equally stupid promise that she naively used as a crutch for her inner strength. He'll look forward for the treat of shattering that. Roku here, he'd rather not repeat any silly promises to wipe off—

Yuto jumped away to avoid the blast of bullet pearls that was Roku's signature adopted from Seigen. Yuki and Yuna were purified simultaneously. When Roku ran to the stairs, Yuto saw the eyes behind the tears were still strong.

A smile formed on his lips. Roku really does always break his expectations, doesn't he? Yuto wondered what would it would really take to break that spirit.

Only a small moment was needed to plunge everyone into the Magano.

And Yuto watched.

He watched when Ruri, despite being in pain, was delusional enough to cry in joy believing she was going to be strong enough to fight alongside her crush, babbling nonsense when Roku finally found the room where the ritual was done. Yuto barely needed an iota of mana to take away the liberty of her arm so she would use all the force she has to jab her crush's shoulder. Ruri quickly became distressed enough for the change to take over her.

He watched when Tatsuya knocked Roku away from Shizuku's swipe, and the two ran away to one of the bedrooms to hide from the Kegare. Seems Tatsuya reached his limit in there, judging from Roku's scream. All the remaining Kegare soon swarmed to him. Yuto left the three remaining humans writhing from the ritual to find Roku before he dies, bringing the one charm he saved for Roku's turn.

He smelled fresh blood and spotted splatters on the wall, but against his expectation Roku was still alive, and had only lost his right arm. He was losing a lot of blood, better do the ritual before Roku dies.

He strongly suspected Roku wouldn't fail.

Those red eyes were so full of confusion seeing Yuto walking calmly towards him. "Yu...to..."

Yuto smiled, placed his charm on Roku's chest. "Roku."

Oh.

So this is how Roku looks like when he's angry.

* * *

I find the dynamics in Sousei no Onmyouji interesting. Looking at the premise alone, we don't get the typical two characters pitted against each other for the abstract strongest title, but two of them paired right off the bat, and because they're character designs are young the story also doesn't get forced to drag them through the romantic journey.

An "average" male meeting an overly badass female is a pretty typical starting point in anime. Rokuro in this case isn't treated as a "hidden badass" though, the Leader character called him out on it by putting on a showcase of his abilities in front of everyone. Moreover, Rokuro's character is an "ex-badass", young but already jaded of life, but somewhere inside him still cares (which never fails to act when someone is in danger).

The badass female character has been the cliche so far, except that I glimpsed a new dimension in which she's quietly jealous of the male, but it never got into shitstain territory because she's seething over his scorning and neglect of his potential.

I haven't read the manga and have only watched up til the episode where Rokuro willingly went into Megano to save Ryogo, so it's why this story doesn't have my usual worldbuilding flare. I found much of the supporting cast highly one dimensional, so I'm also not interested in developing the world, but this is only because I haven't watched more than 3 or 4 episodes before losing patience and deciding to write this immediately, so the status might change.

Update: Ok, I'm surprised that SnO isn't more famous than it is. It's such a fun ride, despite delving deeper into cliches it keeps toeing and deleting and breaking the typical expectations. I could credit the disinterest due to the supporting cast's (particularly the guardians and leader) unclear stances (they're presented as super strong and whatever, coming in late to save the day and whatever, they're just clearly talked about and shown to have wisdom and plans and strength but they don't seem like they're motivated and put expectations on the lead characters all the while belittling them in a consistent manner), buuuuut as I continued to watch my dislike for the 12 guardians actually dissipated because they gradually grew as genuine characters as well. So, yes, I'm surprised the fandom for SnO is small. Hmm, I guess a constant "downfall" is the recycled scenes for the charm usage and name attacks, also the shitty slow way of revealing "surprising" information.


End file.
